Cost-benefit and risk analysis in organizational security decisions

¶ … Role of Cost Benefit Analysis in Making Security Decisions

Security decisions always reflect cost-benefit analyses, because different jurisdictions and organizations have specific budgets and resources that dictate what programs and equipment are feasible choices. For example, a large and well-funded police department such as the NYPD may be able to invest the resources necessary to develop and implement the most advanced, state-of-the-art technologies and tools (Clifford 2004, 305-307). Meanwhile, much smaller and less well-funded municipalities, such as Union City, CA typically lack the resources necessary to make comparable choices (Clifford 2004, 307). Therefore, those entities must be creative, such as by developing out-of-the-box strategies that contribute to their missions and objectives in ways that are lower cost and that represent high return on resource investments (Clifford 2004, 310). Examples would include maximizing resources such as citizen's groups and approaching crime from a prevention perspective, such as through providing after-school programs to reduce the incidence of juvenile crime (Clifford 2004, 307).

The Role of Risk Analysis in Making Security Decisions

Security decisions always rely heavily on an initial process of risk analysis because every security environment represents different types of security threats (Clifford 2004, 213). Depending on the nature of the environment, the principle security threats might be physical security and perimeter access control in some environments but information security and computer security in others. Naturally, it is impossible to design and implement an optimal security plan to address the specific threats to any given entity without first identifying and understanding the particular threats inherent to any given environment (Clifford 2004, 213).